Forget the Priest. Make Felix and the Cat the Main Characters Review of Fathless.

 Even if I'm not enjoying a book at the beginning, I always read on because books often get better part way in. This is how it was reading Faithless. Father Raul's drinking and drug taking seems to go on and on. I understand why he does it, it just seems to go on and on. When his friend, Felix, shows up, the story really begins to hop. Until Felix showed up, it was drinking, pill-popping, and hearing voices page after page. Felix makes the action happen. Bruiser, the cat, was a good addition, too.

There's movement once Felix arrives. He zooms his Harley to dive bars, seedy motels, fights, trades barbs with racist bikers and bartenders, visits the victim's neighbors and relatives, gets help, finds out the truth about the victim. Meanwhile, Raul drinks, hears things, and occasionally remembers to feed the cat. The middle of the story was exciting because there's action.  A lot of times novels have a mushy middle, but this middle was great.   The sidekick outshines the protagonist.

Then, we get to the climax. It should have been exciting because there was  gruesome violence, torture, shootings, stabbings, fires. But here's the thing--it went on and on and on just like the drinking and pill-popping did. Page after page of every kind of gory ick until I got tired of reading it. It seems like there should be a quick and exciting climax and get it over with, instead of brutalizing the protagonist page after page. The end of the ending was a deus ex machina and that's often disappointing. 

Middle of the book-great. Beginning and ending went on too long.  Here's a book I'd read: Felix and a cat (he only tolerates cats) drive around the country on his Harley hunting demons! That would be a fun read and an exciting book. Go Felix! Go cat!

Thanks to Flame Tree Publishing and Netgalley for this chance to review an eArc of Fathless.